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IRISH PEOPLE EVACUATED from Afghanistan are currently travelling home with the French and Finnish militaries.
Two flights carrying Irish citizens left Kabul airport yesterday, with both planes landing outside of the country.
An Irish mission of Army Rangers and two diplomats – an Emergency Consular Assistance Team (ECAT) that landed in Afghanistan earlier this week evacuated 26 Irish people on top of a previous 10 who had already exited.
Speaking to RTÉ Radio One’s Morning Ireland, Minister for Foreign Affairs and Defence Simon Coveney outlined that “our citizens left on two separate flights yesterday”.
“At about half 11 yesterday morning, the French flight left, and that was predominantly our ECAT team of Army Rangers and one diplomat,” Coveney said.
“They’re flying home via Abu Dhabi. They’re currently in Abu Dhabi, that’s my understanding, and we’ll look to get them home as quickly as we can,” he said.
“The French are going to facilitate that, or at least bring them to Paris.”
The minister said that the other Irish people evacuated “are flying from Kabul to Helsinki with the Finnish military and they stopped in Tbilisi [in Georgia] on the way”.
“There’s one diplomat and two rangers who are accompanying 15 other Irish nationals and their dependents on that flight,” he said.
“They will arrive today in Helsinki and we will work with them to make sure that they get on commercial flights, predominantly into Dublin.”
However, around 60 Irish citizens and their families are still in Afghanistan, as well as 15 Afghan citizens with Irish residency.
“Most of them are in Kabul and we are in contact with all of those families, and we will stay in contact with them for as long as it takes,” Coveney said.
The Irish embassy in Abu Dhabi, the closest to Afghanistan, are involved with that process, but a team is also to be set up in Dublin to help to facilitate communication with the families.
“There are 15 Afghan citizens who are residents in Ireland, so people who would have been living in Ireland as Afghan citizens, some of them working here who would have gone home to Afghanistan for holidays or to see family and so on,” he said.
“We’re effectively treating them as Irish citizens as well and we will be working with all of those who want to leave Afghanistan to help them find ways of doing that.
But the truth is this is going to be an effort that many many countries are involved in, it will be an international community effort to ensure that foreign nationals who are in Afghanistan who want to get out will be facilitated in doing that, and that is going to be ongoing work in the days and weeks ahead.”
“In the immediate future I think we’re going to see a focus on exiting Kabul airport.” safely.
The Netherlands, Denmark, and Australia have already left Afghanistan and Coveney said he expects France and the UK to leave today.
“The operations to evacuate civilians out of Kabul airport are effectively closed now.”
Australia’s defence minister has said it pulled its troops out of the country because of intelligence about the safety risk to the airport.
Two blasts at the airport yesterday killed at least 72 people.
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A sky news journalist was fired upon in Ukraine and it made international headlines for a few day after the event, and rightly so. I wonder will the cold blooded murder of a journalist by the iof make the same waves internationally.
We need sanctions against the israhelli regime now. The israhelli regime can not be allowed to continue with the murder and ethnic cleasing of Palestinians. #BDS
@Eamonn Connaghan: “They are b&stards, but our b&stards”, to misquote certain American president.
@Eamonn Connaghan: this sad and tragic murder is receiving a lot of coverage this morning, RTÉ sky 24 BBC 24 and CNN
@George Demo: Yes but in a lot of those cases they are not specifying that it was Israeli fire that killed her.
@Eamonn Connaghan: https://twitter.com/mairavz/status/1524364634341482496?s=24&t=t2EVsMnZJB7ICQ87I_B87Q
@Eamonn Connaghan: iof, clever, proper name for them really.
@Zmeevo Libe: Don’t put all your eggs into the one b@stard.
@Eamonn Connaghan: you guys know well that the journalist was caught in the cross fire of the two warring factions.. But you love any chance to demonise israel as does the irish media.. Regardless of the facts..
@Victor Feldman: She was a thorn isn the side of the Israelis for her reporting. She had been previously arrested by them on many occasions.
According to other journalists in the area she and the other journalists had reported to the Israelis that they were covering the story and were on site. They were wearing the PRESS jackets and helmets. According to witnesses the journalists were well away from any conflict between the 2 sides. Yet you know well that it was crossfire. Have you given your report to the UN or Amnesty or any other international organisation? Probably not as they are all corrupt and biased against Israel aren’t they? I wonder why…..
Israel lost the plot decade’s ago and worse they’re getting. Their policy to the Palestinians and the actions of the IDF are shameful. Next comes the slick and sickly PR with obfuscation and conciliatory tones. They just don’t get it. Lots of nukes and a big army won’t prevent them from reeping the harvest they sow with caleous disregard. May Ms Abu Akleh rest in peace.
This brave women was assassinated by occupying forces. Her crime, being both a journalist and Palestinian.
Yet again evidence of Israeli justice. No trail, no charges just a bullet fired into her brain. Other journalist were also injured so this was a targeted assassination. Even those who tried to recover her remains came under fire. Preventing any medical help reaching her.
May she rest in peace.
They rarely justify these killings but this journal…ist was wearing a flak jacket with PRESS on it. The Israeli sniper knew how to aim his American rifle.
@Bramley Hawthorne: proof please
There are no Israeli “security forces” in the Occupied West Bank, there are only Israeli armed forces brutally occupying it, like Putin’s forces in Ukraine
The Israeli army/paramilitaries kill about two or three Palestinians every week.
I wonder what their ‘investigation’ will conclude. Will they release the body cam footage?
@Watchful Axe: I doubt body cam footage will show anything, wasn’t it a sniper.
@Watchful Axe: Palestine have her body and won’t join a joint investigation
I wonder why
‘The sad death…’ should that not read ‘murder’? Why repeat the euphemism?
Excuse disjointed comment but I was being flagged as ‘toxic’ every second word.
Absolutely disgraceful attitude from the US. When asked whether the US would support an international investigation, US Department of State spokesman Ned Price said: “Israel has the wherewithal to conduct a thorough investigation”.
@Fr. Fintan Stack: Never mind about this, it’ll be forgot about in a day or two, just make sure you have a Ukrainian flag in your bio. Or else.
Is Israeli Jews believe in God, do they really think he’d be fine with how they carry on? They base their aggression on an idea that Jesus gave them that land and it’s rightly theirs. But do they think they’d meet Jesus in heaven and his position would be “it’s fine to shoot innocent people if it’s to do with property and land ownership. In that instance my son, of course you may kill”
@Rob Gale: The god of the bible was fond of a lot of smiting and slaughter so I’d say they’d be grand once they get up there.
@Rob Gale: buddie.. The Jewish religion does not believe in jesus. At that period the Jewish people had been around for a couple of thousand years.
Has anything been proved
Palestine won’t join a joint investigation
Why?
@Kieron Meehan: Israel won’t agree to an independent international investigation. I wonder why.
@Kieron Meehan: strange that you spit out the same nonsense a couple of times on the comments when it clearly stated in the article Israel haven’t contacted the palestinians
@Fr. Fintan Stack: it won’t agree to an international investigation because there are countries like Ireland who viscerally dislike Israel.
have your say